TM Forum Training

Hamming It Up in Madrid

John Reilly — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:15:00 GMT

In Madrid last week, attending Action Week. I’m partial to ham and sausage. And if you are, too, then keep reading. If not, you can skip my culinary adventures in the next paragraph and continue with those that follow.

My food adventure began with quite a variety of chorizo (dry sausage in this case) that was spread before me during our lunches at the NH Hotel, the venue for Action Week. I thought I was in heaven. Here is a link to those of you who share my delight in eating this treat…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorizo. One night I enjoyed dry-cured ham leg with a pal at a small bar off the beaten path…http://hamlovers.com/product/119/972/Cinco_Jotas_jamon_iberico_de_bellota. Not ending there, another night I had rigatoni with shredded 5J ham and porcini mushroom cream sauce…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam%C3%B3n_serrano Oh my! To finish, on the way home I enjoyed some small, thin chorizo at the Iberia lounge in the Madrid airport.

There was quite a variety of interest in the Information Framework (SID) at Action Week. It started with a SID roundtable on Monday as part of the Frameworx spotlight. With me facilitating, attendees offered their opinions on what parts of the SID should be further developed. A lot of interest was expressed areas such as assets, a missing component of the SID, loyalty programs, also missing, and contact/lead/prospect, an undeveloped part of the SID. During project team meetings, discussions ranged from re-starting work on external plant, working on catalog management, informal chats about fraud, mapping SID to the other frameworks, and on and on. More can be found in the notes prepared and posted by the various project teams on the TM Forum community. Volunteers to participate in our work are always welcome!

The new release of the SID, due out as part of Frameworx 12 in May, is also variety-filled. It includes an initial capacity model, the introduction of a dispute group of entities (ABE), updates to the Performance ABE, development of the Resource Trouble (Alarm) ABE, users and roles they play, and workforce. Based on the level of interest and work at Action Week, SID 12.5 will be filled with even more.

As part of SID 12, we’ll also be making a transition from using Rational Software Modeler to Rational Software Architect. One thing to keep in mind about this is that once a model is used in RSA it cannot be used in RSM, as the models are not backward compatible.

Off to Management World Asia in Singapore next week. Look for some new culinary adventures and such the week after.

Come Fly With Me

John Reilly — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:36:00 GMT

In China last week for my first visit of the year to that interesting country. I am always willing (perhaps!) to try something new during my culinary adventures. So, when my hosts suggested a house specialty at one restaurant, could I say no, even though I associate pigeons with not-so-nice-things they often do to my car? Also known as squab, I had to try it…deep fried and delicious…and even had it at another restaurant during my stay. If your taste buds are open to something new, here is a link to recipe and an accompanying photo of the finished product…http://bookmarqc.com/8khakis/k3/oriental-roast-pigeon/.

Thinking about whether the pigeon I ate ever had the opportunity to fly reminded me of a song sung by old blue eyes, Frank Sinatra, named “Come Fly With Me”. Take a look at him and listen to him croon at…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euci0_BBmNE.

And, this got me thinking about the various ways I can receive flight notifications, phone call, email, SMS, as I trek around this globe of ours. A recent Business Process Framework (eTOM) Community discussion dealt with channels used for communications between a provider/operator and some interested party. The Mediate & Orchestrate Customer Interactions process element supports this. Specializing this eTOM process by introducing a new process element for each channel would certainly support these requirements. However, I think that methods of communication can often be handled in part by the Information Framework (SID).

Each method for a flight notification has different information requirements, a phone number, an email address, a mobile phone number, to name a few. So, the process element could remain neutral and these information requirements are satisfied by the SID. Here is where system use cases, referred to as use case here, come into play to further support these requirements. Use cases specific to the method of communication could be used if channels are considers to be system requirements rather than process requirements.

There is the concept of inheritance in the use case “world”, similar to the same concept in information modeling. This use case concept provides the ability to reuse a generalized use case, in this case one deals with mediation and orchestration independent of the channel. Use cases that deal with the channels would be specializations of this generalized use case. For example, a use case that supports the requirement of calling a customer could include a step that states “Customer Service Representative calls the customer using the phone number provided by the customer.”

Using this technique does not require several specializations of the process element, keeping the eTOM as stable as possible, and capable of handling any type of channel that may be used in the future. And, the channels associated with this type of customer interaction are not ignored. Satisfying this type of channel is deferred to the development of use cases, as mentioned, which many consider more appropriate way to satisfy this type of requirement.

If you are interested in learning more about use case generalization/specialization there are many good articles/papers available on the internet, including…http://www.ts.mah.se/RUP/RationalUnifiedProcess/process/modguide/md_ucgen.htm.

Food for thought at least!

Off to TM Forum Action Week next week. Look for some new culinary adventures and such the week after.

A Winter Wonderland

John Reilly — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:48:00 GMT

In last week doing some consulting in China. One day was a bit cold for my thin Texas blood, even though I grew up in the Northeastern United States. So, at lunch I warmed myself by indulging in hot pot. My hot pot was a wonderful concoction of tofu, tofu skin noodles, seaweed noodles, meatballs, sausage, fish balls, and veggies. Many diners made their own version. For those of you who want to know a little more about this delight, here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pot.

The cold weather reminded me of growing up and having a fun time in the snow – snowmen, snowball fights, sleigh riding, along with ice skating and ice-sailing with a home-made sail. At this time of year it truly was a winter wonderland. To share a little of this with you, here is a little about the song “Winter Wonderland”, actually titled “The Sleigh Ride”. The link below will take you to a version sung by Johnny Mathis, a man with a magical voice. And it has some great winter scenes, which does away with my idea of inserting one here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sawd1J1CFvI.

And what a wonderful year we have had from a TM Forum perspective. Quite a lot for which to be thankful. It wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication of all of you, our members. And for that I thank you and your managers, who provide you with the opportunities to further our work.

Home for the holidays for four weeks…yippee!

More later…

It's All Greek to Me

John Reilly — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:15:00 GMT

In Budapest last week doing some Business Process Framework (eTOM) training at a member site. Not only did I enjoy some wonderful Hungarian food, but I was pleasantly surprised when my host took me to his favorite Greek spot for lunch two days in a row. I enjoyed a tasty gyro one day, followed by homemade moussaka. Here is a link if you are interested what it is…http://greekfood.about.com/od/eggplant/r/moussaka.htm. In also keeping with a music theme I located a pop recording from a Greek group…http://www.vangelislyrics.com/vangelis-and-aphrodites-child-its-five-o-clock-lyrics.htm#CLOCK and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKeLkKMaK78. Check out the 70’s attire.

One of my new associates (student) noted that when dealing with a partner, the terms the partner used were Greek to him. However, he had a conference call with them after the first day of eTOM training and mentioned that he now understood what they were talking about! Earlier this year my Half Full or Half Empty blog mentioned the importance of terminology and also brought in the Information Framework (SID) and the Application Framework (TAM). These three frameworks provide a complete set of terms. At a minimum it’s key to include the SID terms that provide definitions of the entities upon which the processes act. My visit to Hungary (among many others!) re-enforces the point that this is a key use of these frameworks that appears over and over again. Just one of the many uses of the frameworks.

One other note on what does often arise during training. eTOM processes are equated with applications, which cause some questions to be asked about the processes themselves. For example, Resource Data Collection & Distribution. If it is considered as a single application that deals with all interactions with Resources is often then regarded as a performance nightmare. Imagine a single application sorting/sifting through alarms, usage, performance data and so forth. This process can be specialized from an application perspective to just deal with the types of data specific to an application, such as a Fault Management application. The key point sometimes missed is that the capabilities of the same process can be used to represent functionality in multiple applications from an Application Framework (TAM) perspective.

Off to China next week to do some consulting. My last trip for the year, then home for four weeks over the holidays…yippee!

More later…

On Street Vendor Tacos and the Importance of Securing Assets

John Reilly — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 01:37:00 GMT

Management World Orlando 2011 was certainly a busy place to be last week. And, quite eye-opening. From a culinary perspective I turned some shredded pork and chicken made as a sandwich with tortillas into a street vendor taco by taking the top off and using it as a double layer of tortillas folded over the fillings, which included a spicy pepper jack cheese. If you want to learn more about this south of the border delight, here is a link…

http://www.texasmonthly.com/food/recipefiles/Meat%3A+Pork/2001-04-01/recipe3.php

Orlando brought to my mind a group from the 70’s named Tony Orlando and Dawn. They were a pop group that was popular at that time and still seem to be performing. Their signature hits include "Candida", "Knock Three Times", "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree", and "He Don't Love You (Like I Love You)". You can find a bit more about them at…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Orlando_and_Dawn

and

http://www.tonyorlando.com/index.php

A new dawn seemed to be breaking at the conference with increased emphasis on the importance of securing assets, such as customer data and network resources, in our industry. It began with one of the keynotes from a Verizon forensic examiner telling both an amusing story about a hacker named the “Analyzer” and a serious story about pulling our heads out of the sand when it comes to security.

The theme continued in a number of tracks including Security Strategies & Profitability in High-Speed Broadband Networks, Improving Operations with a Robust Cloud Strategy – Minimizing Risk in Outsourcing Critical Workloads to the Cloud, which I chaired, and Delivering Security in the Cloud. I highly recommend downloading the presentations from these tracks.

You may wonder what the TM Forum is doing about security in our work. I had the pleasure of presenting the work of TM Forum members at Forumville on Wednesday. It demonstrated that our new dawn broke quite a while ago!

There is a project launched a few weeks ago that is developing Security Management level 3 processes for the Business Process Framework (eTOM). Once these processes have been agreed to, the team will walk through the end-to-end process flow associated with a few user stories, like Penetration Attack, Denial of Service, and Application Abuse/Misuse.

Security Management standards, developed within the TM Forum Interface Program, provide a unified security and identity management mechanism. The result is faster authentication, improved user experience, and security management. TM Forum Security Management standards define a unified security and identity management mechanism that speeds authentication, improves usability, and supports compliance requirements such as ISO27002. The TM Forum Single Sign-on solution is an open interface that provides increased security and accountability as well as a significant reduction in administrative costs.

In January 2010, a generous contribution of intellectual property was made by the National Security Agency (NSA)—a Computer Net-Defense (NetD) data model, Implementation Guide, and accompanying data dictionary. They provided the TM Forum with valuable insights on how to model information related to threats, incidents, events, assets, and vulnerabilities. The NSA contribution and contributions from other members, such as the US Defense Information Systems Agency, have expedited our work by providing both direction and priority. This model was incorporated into the TM Forum’s Information Model (SID) with Frameworx release 11.0.

Off to Budapest next week conducting some training. Jeannie is going with me, but Sara the Cat is staying with her grandma Dorothy.

More later…

SID and Database Design - At Long Last Love

John Reilly — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:02:00 GMT

I was back visiting China last week, and in addition to my work there, I was also putting the finishing touches on the first three chapters of a new book. Hopefully this book will be of some assistance in explaining how to use the SID for database design,. The topic is one of my “loves”, and at long last, I finally am putting it together. Some of you may remember the American crooner Frank Sinatra, also known as “old blue eyes”. Here is a link to his rendition of the song “At Long Last Love” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqhBn-Hs_aI.

There are a few mentions of Asbury Park, New Jersey in the song. And since many of you have asked for me to continue sharing my culinary adventures, Asbury Park reminds me of my youth spent vacationing at the New Jersey (sea)shore. One real treat was to visit a hot dog cart and have a steamed hot dog, with sauerkraut and mustard…yummy. Here’s a link to one place I enjoyed way back then… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbury_Park,_New_Jersey.

Now on to the book. Right now it is planned to be six chapters (outline below) and will be published in e-book format planned for a Dublin Management World 2012 release. It may also be published in paper form, but I won’t know about that until next month.

The first three chapters of a draft copy of the book can be found at…

http://www.tmforum.org/Community/groups/information_framework_sid/contributions.aspx?id=artf2688

Enjoy the read!

Off to Management World Americas in Orlando next week, and a busy week. More later.

Implementing the eTOM - Shake, Rattle, And Roll

John Reilly — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:33:00 GMT

I was back visiting Manila last week, teaching and working with a provider transforming its business. While there I had the opportunity to see a mode of transportation unique to the Philippines – the Jeepney, modeled after World War II jeeps used by US armed forces. Take a look…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeepney. They shake, rattle, and roll down the road!

Seeing the Jeepneys operate made me think of the song "Shake, Rattle and Roll", a prototypical twelve bar blues-form rock and roll song, written in 1954 by Jesse Stone under his assumed songwriting name Charles E. Calhoun. It was originally recorded by Big Joe Turner, and most successfully by Bill Haley & His Comets. The song as sung by Big Joe Turner is ranked #126 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Here’s a link to Bill Haley’s rendition of the song…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa4FH9mbDGU.

The provider is implementing the eTOM (Business Process Framework) as part of its transformation. The students attending the course were of an increasing number over the past few years that asked the questions: Why do the Information Framework (SID) and the Application Framework (TAM) separate Market/Sales, Product, and Customer, while the eTOM has the processes associated with these concepts/domains combined? Why do so many core processes missing that support Sales/Market, such as Competitive Analysis and Sales Force Administration, Product Management, such as Product Performance and Product Configuration, and some Resource processes, such as Configuration Management and Capacity Management?

A possible answer to the first question is that the Market/Sales, Product, and Customer processes are market/customer facing, so it makes sense that they are consolidated into single horizontal process groupings. One answer to the second question is that there may be processes at Level 2 that are missing, but some of them can be found in Operations Support & Readiness Level 3 process descriptions; I also refer to a contribution made on behalf of many of use that do training/consulting that identifies possible process candidates. The contribution can be found here… http://www.tmforum.org/Community/groups/the_business_process_framework/contributions.aspx?id=artf2385.

One of the exercises in eTOM Implementer’s workshop has the students identify possible gaps in the eTOM in support of these key functional areas. And to fill the gaps. To do this they are asked to separate the Market, Sales, Product, and Customer concepts/domains into different Level 1 horizontal process groupings, similar to the way the SID and TAM are separated. Also, some Level 2 processes may be moved to the newly introduced Level 1 horizontals. For example, moving Sales Development, which manages the life of Sales Channels, to the one of the two new Sales horizontals, such as Sales Management. The figure below depicts this for the Strategy, Infrastructure, and Product Level 0 process area.

Once this is done and any gaps are identified, a choice must be made.

One choice is to collapse the added horizontals back into the two original eTOM Level 1 horizontals. This is often a choice made by new implementers and those wanting to stay as close to the eTOM as possible. This represents “Shake” a little, but no “Rattle and Roll”. There is the option to introduce ad-hoc process groupings as explained in GB921G - Guide to Applying the Business Process Framework. The ad-hoc process groupings can be used to depict Market, Sales, Product, and Customer as separate enterprise-specific Level 1 views of the eTOM, while maintaining the original eTOM Level 1 decomposition.

A second choice for those that want to take a more “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” approach is to leave the newly introduced Level 1 horizontals separate. Any Level 2 processes that were moved, and were changed in some way, would be renamed to avoid confusion. For example, the Selling process may have some of its Level 3 processes moved to a newly introduced Level 2, such as moving Manage Prospect to a new Contact/Lead/Prospect Management Level 2; in this case Selling could be changed to Sales Negotiation to avoid confusion with the original Selling process.

While this choice seems to be quite disruptive, the adaptations should be easy to explain. Consider using a 15-20 second “rule”. If an adaptation can be explained within this time frame, perhaps it is acceptable. However, don’t let the explanation of all adaptations accumulate to hours!

One fear that could arise is “do adaptations such as this have negative impacts when considering conformance to the eTOM?”. eTOM conformance is measured at Level 2 / Level 3 equivalents, not at Level 1. So conformance can be maintained even if a Level 3, such as Manage Prospect, is moved to a new Level 2, as mentioned in the example above. As long as the description of the Level 3 process has not been changed, it can still be shown to be the equivalent of the same Level 3 process within the existing Level 2 Selling process.

As I like to say “it’s about choices”.

Off to China next week, one of my more frequent destinations. More later.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

John Reilly — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:48:00 GMT

I returned to Singapore last week to conduct some training, my first visit since around this same time in 2008. While I did enjoy a number of spicy Singaporean delights, I thought it was time for a change. Particularly since I have been sharing my food adventures for the last two years. My last blog used a music from my past theme, so I thought I would continue sharing classics you may (or may not J) enjoy from my younger days.

So, here’s a classic from Bob Dylan released in named The Times They Are A-Changin’. Here’s a link if you want to listen… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYQZSDOWwww.

In the Business Process Framework (eTOM) Distilled course we teach the following regarding the time frame in which these vertical process groupings are executed.

During this class and the last one in Mumbai, some providers/operators, particularly those that are start-ups, have questioned these time frames (and these have been increasingly questioned by my students over the last several years). They ask when these were defined, which I believe was circa 2000 when the eTOM was first developed. The times have changed since then. So, perhaps these time frames should be ignored, or at least reconsidered. A few examples: one student’s company’s sales forecasts are constantly evaluated, not done long term; another student mentioned that shortfalls in network infrastructure are evaluated often and not just in the mid-term.

Related to this is that some students were looking to add some new Level 2 processes to their implementation of the eTOM. And they thought that one determining factor as to where they were placed was these time frames. The reason was they believed these were time frames to which adherence was mandatory. For example, one student wanted to classify Competitor Analysis as an Infrastructure Lifecycle Management process, but since they executed it daily, they thought that it had to be classified as a Operations Support & Readiness process. Re-thinking the time frames resulted in them classifying it as they originally wanted to do. So, if you are implementing the eTOM or have implemented it, you may want to re-consider the execution time frames, adjusting them to fit how your business operates.

Off to Manila next week. I was there in August evangelizing Frameworx, which resulted in my return trip, this time teaching for the entire week. Look for a classic from the 50’s in my next blog. More later.

Please Mr. Postman

John Reilly — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 04:31:00 GMT

I was back visiting India last week and thought I had done enough blogging about my Indian food adventures...at least for now! So this blog takes a trip down “nostalgia lane” for me (and all of you I hope!). I’ve been searching for a new ring tone for my mobile device. And, being a child, sometimes referred to as a flower child, of the 60’s, my favorite music was from Motown (then headquartered in Detroit, hence the name). Here is a link if you want to investigate further… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motown.

One of my favorite tunes was "Please Mr. Postman". It was the debut single by The Marvelettes for the Tamla (Motown) label, notable as the first Motown song to reach the number-one position on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart. The single achieved this position in late 1961; it hit number one on the R&B chart as well. "Please Mr. Postman" became a number-one hit again in early 1975 when The Carpenters' cover of the song reached the top position of the Billboard Hot 100.

The opening lyrics:

Please Mister Postman, look and see

(Oh yeah)

If there's a letter in your bag for me

(Please, Please Mister Postman)

Here is a link to the song… www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dVt11UZ0uA.

And, it is now my new ring tone!

A longer story than my usual one. But a letter is often a notification that is recorded, particularly since it is between parties, and in the case of the postman has a physical presence. During the eTOM Implementer’s course last week, several students asked why there were so many notification Level 4 processes, particularly after we discussed semantic analysis. Using this technique often arrives the discovery of a process that appears to be a notification process.

One example was Monitor S/P Performance, the description of which is:

These processes are responsible for continuously monitoring the status of S/P performance degradation reports and managing notifications to processes and other parties registered to receive notifications of any status changes. Notification lists are managed and maintained by the Support S/P Performance Management processes.

This process most likely creates an entity that represents the notification which is then delivered to registered parties by some form of postman. And, therefore, it is a process.

The course mentions that sometimes the discovered process may actually be information that is passed along a control flow to another process. Thus it is really not a process, only the output of some process.

One example of this type of process they brought up was Correlate Resource Performance Event Notification, the description of which is:

This process passes information about potential specific service performance degradations arising from specific resource degradations to Service Quality Management to manage any necessary restoration activity as determined by that process. It passes information about resource failures due to performance threshold violations to Resource Trouble Management to manage any necessary restoration activity as determined by that process. It forwards resource performance degradation notifications to other Resource Performance Management processes, which manage activities to restore normal specific resource performance; and

The question was why couldn’t this be shown as a flow from the Level 4 process Record Resource Performance Data or from the Level 4 process Generate Resource Performance Degradation Problem. So, this does not qualify as a process.

Something to keep in mind when using semantic analysis as an aid in decomposing processes to a lower level!

Off to Singapore next week. It’s been a few years since I’ve been there. So, maybe I’ll revert back to food stories in my next blog. More later.

The Whole Pizza Pie

John Reilly — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 05:08:00 GMT

My last blog was about the Philippine food I tried while I was in Manila. However, I do have another food experience to share from my visit there. Pizza is a much-loved food item around the world, as I found out there. In fact, I found quite a Shakey’s pizza parlor there and used to visit one here in Dallas, but it has morphed into another name. However take a look at the Shakey’s site here… http://shakeys.com/ and you see an example of the world-wide love for pizza. So, I had to try another Shakey’s and ordered a large with everything. I don’t recommend trying to eat the whole pie, especially when in this case I asked that it not to be cut into pieces!

While I was there visiting a member, one question that arose was about implementing Frameworx. Many members wonder if the entire Frameworx, the Business Process Framework, the Information Framework, the Application Framework, and the Integration Framework must be implemented all at once. Kind of like trying to eat the whole pizza pie and quite a daunting task.

The answer to the question lies in an enterprise’s requirements. These will often lead to the framework or frameworks with which to start an implementation. For example, if looking to fill possible gaps in a current process model is a requirement, then the Business Process Framework is a place to start. This typically leads to mapping current processes to the Business Process Framework to identify the gaps. And, only the gaps that are identified are the parts of the framework with which to start. Quite a bit easier than eating the whole pie.

And, the domain/concept based structure of the frameworks represents a way to divide up the pieces of each pie. Certain domains/concepts may be of specific interest, even across the frameworks. For example, starting with processes, information, applications, and interfaces that focus on Customer.

So, keep in mind that an incremental approach to implementing Frameworx should be considered, and that it can be accomplished over a series of time-based phases that represent prioritized requirements.

Off to India next week, another of my favorite food havens. More later.